What happened at the Trover Shop?

No one, absolutely no one, asked! (Maybe you are all on vacation?)

Well here goes -

I walk into the Trover Shop on Capital Hill, something I have done maybe two times before in my life. It is a Tuesday and it is lunch time.

I look at the books on the shelf, and try to decide whether to by an autographed copy of Senator Ted Kennedy's new book. I decide against it.

A woman comes in the shop. She is dressed very well. I would guess her to be about 70. She walks with erect posture.

She goes to the counter and asks the salesman if he has a copy of A.A. Milne's 'Now We Are Six". He looks it up in his catalog and says that he does not, but could order it quickly. She says that would be fine.

He goes into his computer and asks whether she would want a soft cover copy or a hard cover copy. She asks the price difference. The hardcover is more than three times as expensive. She says: let's take the hardcover. My grandson will only be six one time.

You note that so far, everything is fine. Nothing annoying has happened.

The salesman goes back to the computer to start the order process. She looks straight ahead and without missing a beat starts reciting the book. From cover to (I assume) cover.

Like Homer reciting the Iliad, or a Moslem the Koran, she goes on and on and on. And the book is such nonsense, especially to hear on a Tuesday lunchtime at the Capitol Hill Trover Shop.

Now, aren't you sorry, you didn't ask?